Covid-19 Update

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, absolutely. People are asking questions about how the vaccine will be rolled out and of course I understand why people are so interested in that. We will of course protect the most vulnerable first and we will do that on the basis of clinical advice. The JCVI brings together the best clinicians in this area and it meets very regularly. Decisions of the JCVI will not be on the critical path to the roll-out of the vaccine—I have been assured of that.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab) [V]]

One of my 15-year-old constituents had a covid test over a week ago, and in spite of chasing, is still none the wiser as to whether she has covid or not. Not only is she having to self-isolate, but her mum, a nurse, is having to take the precaution of self-isolating, something she says her ward can ill afford. On top of that, last month, the time taken to get test results back from the national Test and Trace programme to Oldham’s public health team, to enable them to trace the cases that the national programme is failing to get in touch with, was 12 days—12 days, not 24 hours. Will the Health Secretary please tell my constituent how many of the 16,000 or so lost test results were from Oldham, and how many contacts—not cases— have not yet been traced?

[Matt Hancock]

The good news is that the turnaround time of test results has been coming down. I would love to take up the case of the individual who has not had a result back, as the hon. Lady has described, because that is rare: the majority of cases now come back the next day. I will specifically look into turnaround times in Oldham, because an average of 12 days seems a lot longer than I expected, and I will make sure to get back to the hon. Lady at the appropriate opportunity.